The last train out

Water in the tea, tables that wouldn't stand... yet the journey was unforgettable

I wish now I could claim that I had paid more attention to it. But Koti, the old railway station (with a long tunnel) in Himachal Pradesh, recently demised due to landslide, must have been a pretty nondescript sort of a place "" as in pretty and nondescript, since nothing can be plain in that part of the country.

If I close my eyes, I can see, even now, the Kalka-Shimla toy train chug out of Barog. I can see a station master at one of the other stops, en route, hold out two flags, one red, one green, to signal us forward, in a manner I have only seen in very old films (or perhaps heard mentioned in the salon stories of my late grandfather). I can see us rolling into Dharampur, into Kumarhatti, out of the pretty Summer Hill.

And I can also see, amusingly, a member of the railway catering staff run for it; from the shelter of the platform, scramble aboard with a tray full of cups of tea for us in blinding rain, valiantly trying to prevent the rain from diluting our drink.

And, of course, I remember the tunnels: the longest one at Barog, almost at the beginning of the climb, followed by some of the most stunning scenery, misty landscapes, panoramic twists and turns... Interwoven with these are also more mundane flashes: rain-drenched curtains in our coupe, suspicious foreigners, bawling babies... But sorry, no Koti. Which is a shame because this would then have been a more newsy sort of a piece.

I was, after all, in the last Shivalik Express to ever roll out of the 150-year-old railway station. It would perhaps have seen busier times ahead as a World Heritage Site "" there has been talk after all of the rail link, inaugurated by Lord Curzon way back in the early 1900s, getting the UNESCO-protected status. But it was not to be.

"Are you sure this includes the meal?" asked the suspicious Dutch tourist, peering into my ticket. I had talked him into swapping places with me (so that I could be with the rest of my travel group) only a minute ago and being the good-humoured or credulous sort of chap that he must have been, he had agreed. He had looked a little worried with the arrangement though: was I about to cheat him out of omelette-toast or better view? He needn't have worried.

Aboard the Shivalik Express (the more famous Himalayan Queen is an "ordinary" train vs our luxury one), all were equal. We all got our breakfast (cutlets for vegetarians, not Raj-style, strictly Indian Railways style) and tea ""with equal measures of rain water in it!

And the curtains too dripped equally in all our coupes since not many of the ancient windows would shut perfectly, just as not all of the old-fashioned tables would stand unaided to support our refreshments. But did we mind? Certainly not.

Ensconced in my comfortable couch (no mass-produced recliners here) with its smell of old age and Victorian-patterned tapestry so different from the shiny surfaces of the Shatabdis, I could have been travelling aboard the Orient Express. Time to take out that Agatha Christie, I wondered?

Rebecca, as it turned out, was a better companion for the duration of the rather long, five-hour climb up. The weather being what it was "" ghostly mists and vapours filling up the valleys, shimmering bodies of water in the distance, an almost surreal landscape "" I could imagine myself being in an indistinct Western county, except for the sea.

The tunnels were always going to be the high point of this journey. All 103 of them in the engineering masterpiece that this colonial link is. The little girl who sat in front of me would cover up her face each time we passed through one, battling no doubt many a childish terror. For my part,

I scanned the darkness eagerly hoping for a glimpse of other promised sightings: there are almost as many ghosts in Shimla as in Mussoorie, if you go by bookish accounts and folklore. And their favourite haunts seem to be the tunnels that have a huge place in the psychology of the erstwhile summer capital of British-India.

An Englishwoman on a Victorian rickshaw is said to be visible only in the tunnels and another story talks about a white soldier walking besides the rail tracks meeting the few brave mortals who are inclined to venture out here. I met neither and, disappointed, went back to the many fears and sorrows of the unnamed narrator of my book.

By the time she had come of age, no more terrorised by the housekeeper, we were already pulling into our quaint destination, fraying yet charming. Going back would be another journey, this time in a boring, hired cab.

Koti had been destroyed and the trains halted, though I hope not for long.